The Self Made Argument

Kylie Jenner is close to hitting a Billion dollars. I actually didn’t know who Kylie Jenner was til I heard this news (I know what rock have I been hiding under?). Very impressive for a 21 year old! A lot of people have been claiming that she shouldn’t be called a self made billionaire. It’s because she is a part of a famous family and they have some wealth. How many of those other family member are billionaires or close to being billionaires? None. There are family members that have been famous for much longer than she has. Apparently she started her empire with about 250k that she gained from her modelling. That is not a heck of a lot of money to then multiply out to what it is today.

People say similar things about Donald Trump. The Don claims he was given a small loan of a million dollars (be interesting to see what a big loan would be) from his father. He used that and his father’s connections to multiply it out to billions. “Oh, but he had a million dollars.” “Oh, but he had his father’s connections.” How many people who have had wealth were able to multiply it out like that? Not many. How many people with connections have being able to utilize them to that kind of effect. Not many.

To criticize others because of perceived help that they may have received is petty. Okay if they have done something corrupt to get rich, then that is naughty. But if they have used systems, resources, people, money to get there, than that is impressive. It doesn’t matter if it is not conventional or the same way that everyone has done it. Who cares? Haters are gonna hate. People get hung up on technicalities. “Oh they don’t qualify because they had help.” “They didn’t do things the right way or my way.” “They have 2 scoops of ice cream instead of one.” Seriously, there are better things to fight over. Who cares if technically they aren’t self-made? Name me someone who is.

We can argue that there is no such thing as a self-made man or woman. Even if the person started off with nothing they have had to get help all the way through. They had to get someone to buy whatever it was they were selling. They had to scale up their enterprise every time that it needed expanding. These are not the moves of the weak. They have had to be strong in the face of much opposition. Anyone who is successful has not been able to achieve it by themselves. The idea of the self-made person is false. We all need the help of others.

I tend to not listen to much criticism now. It’s not that you can’t learn from criticism. Far from it. There is a lot to learn from others. But most of the harshest criticism tends to come form those who are not in the same position as those that they are criticizing. It it like they are trying to cut off the head of anyone who would rise above them. If they are not in that position what kind of advice could they give? Definitely nothing from experience. So why listen to them? Just tune them out.